1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for inducing emotions, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for inducing emotions, wherein biosignals from a user are fedback and thus an emotion desired by a user can be accurately induced in accordance with the fedback biosignals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An emotion generally means a mental state that is expressed as a change in feelings and a change in physiological activation due to an internal or external stimulus. As to the various emotions, there are positive emotions such as love, ecstasy, satisfaction, or kindliness, and negative emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, or disgust.
There have been proposed various models for emotion induction according to methods of analyzing an emotion and relationships between the emotion and the autonomic nervous system in view of psychology. First, there is the James-Lange Theory that an emotion is induced by cognizing a physiological change. Second, there is the Cannon-Bard Theory that emotion determination is first made by the central nervous system and then a response of the autonomic nervous system occurs.
The emotion induction theories will be described in more detail. The James-Lange Theory states that a bodily change does not occur due to the emotion, but it first occurs in a certain situation and then a particular emotion is induced upon cognition of such bodily change. That is, it is asserted that tears are not shed due to sadness, but the sadness is felt since the tears are shed. On the contrary, the Cannon-Bard Theory states that after the central nervous system cognizes the emotion in response to the internal or external stimulus and a physiological response of the autonomic nervous system is then induced.
In recent, emotion induction methods for attempting prevention and treatment of various diseases, skin care, metabolism adjustment and psychological stability are widely performed in various fields by inducing positive emotions in a user using music, fragrance, images or the like based on such emotion induction theories.
As an example of such emotion induction methods, U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,322 discloses a psychotheraphy apparatus wherein a patient's range of lateral eye movement and physiological responses are monitored and visual and auditory stimuli are controllably presented to the patient so as to elicit and eliminate a mental imagery of a negative experience of the patient and to substitute a positive experience reinforcing a desired new behavior, as shown in FIG. 1.
However, since this psychotheraphy apparatus is operated in such a manner that the patient presses down buttons based on his/her own subjective determination to ultimately control the visual and auditory stimuli, there is a problem in that it is impossible to objectively confirm as to whether a desired emotion is properly induced based on the visual and auditory stimuli.
Further, U.S. Pat. No. 5,725,472 discloses a psychotheraphy apparatus wherein physiological responses of a patient and push-button responses of the patient to asked questions are monitored to cognize an emotion induction state and then visual, auditory, olfactory, and tactile stimuli are selectively controlled based on the cognized emotion induction state, thereby resulting in new emotional, psychological and cognitive response patterns in the patient, as shown in FIG. 2.
However, since this psychotheraphy apparatus is operated in such a manner that in order to ensure an accuracy of determination of emotion induction, the physiological responses of the patient is used only as auxiliary data for the determination of the emotion induction and the emotion induction state is cognized based on the button answers of the patient to the asked questions, there are problems in that it is difficult to objectively induce an emotion if the patient's responses are not clear, and that the patient's feelings cannot be naturally transmitted to the psychotheraphy apparatus since the patient should make an artificial effort to press down the buttons for expressing the patient's feelings. Moreover, the psychotheraphy apparatus has a limitation in that there is no specific suggestion regarding how to use the monitored physiological responses of the patient in the emotion induction.